Sanctuary
by Aveybby
Summary: Angst ridden Destiel AU; a series of painful and unfortunate moments in the young lives of Dean Winchester and Castiel Milton. Broken homes and lost souls often find one another to create a sanctuary of quiet understanding.
1. Chapter 1

What does it mean when waking up becomes a chore? Does it mean that it's time to give up? Or does it mean that you just aren't trying hard enough? Whatever the answer may be he doesn't have a choice. He doesn't get to give up, and his body can't take anymore pushing to work harder. Rolling out of bed quietly and quickly, efficient as always. A slight ringing in his ear and the burn of bile at the back of his throat. Soft whispers of a hangover lurked inside of him, normal morning routine. This just wasn't right, none of it was fucking right and he hated it. His room shouldn't look like a tornado went through it, clothing scattered everywhere books that had gone unread due to a hectic work schedule, and the overturned family picture. A picture that had a beautiful blonde. That blonde woman should still be there, singing 'Hey Jude', cleaning the house, and making sure her boys were happy. This was all so fucking wrong.

His little brother stood in the door way, big eyes on a small face. They were haunted, they had seen too much. Little Sammy, he would die to protect the boy and in return the boy never questioned why his brother's room reeked of whiskey. It was a sick reminder of their father. A ex-marine lost in grief. "_You'll fucking die out there, just like her, you gotta do better boy. You gotta be better_" The words still picked little sections of his wounded soul to slice day in and day out. There was no relief on the battlefield. John was gone now though. He fucking died out there, just like her, he couldn't do better. He never got better. The boys would never forget the accident, only a block away from the small brick shelter that was their home. The heat at the flames casting a warmth over them in the January night, melting the snow away. Happy New Years. The same way they would never forget sitting on the trunk of their fathers car, watching their home be devoured by flames. Sweet, beautiful Mary lost to what resembled hell.

He drove the young boy with a too long mop of hair to the middle school, it was adjoined to the high school that he had dropped out of to support his little Sammy. The young boy needed a hair cut, but his brother barely scraped enough by to cover their rent and food. He'd just have to trim his brothers hair again.

"Bye Dean" They boy muttered, the two words echoed quietly in the confines of car. It had been their fathers, he was so proud of it at some point in his life. But after her, after Mary, after the fire he locked the Impala away. Now it was Dean's, now it had an emergency six pack in the trunk. Like father like son.

He didn't say a word as the boy hauled his bag out of the car along with him. He was too skinny, needed to eat more, needed to grow, but Dean couldn't work twenty-five hours a day to give Sammy everything he needed, everything he deserved. There weren't enough hours for Dean to prove he was worth something, to prove that he did get better.

Not a beat was missed as Sammy left the car door open like he always did, little cogs to a broken clock that still managed to tick. Habits. A pale boy, a year younger than Dean slid into the car. He should be in class, but they didn't care. What was the point anyway? They needed each other more. His blue eyes that were nothing short of icy, in every sense as they never failed to send a cool chill through Dean's belly. They were empty though, those eyes that could make even the toughest soldier nervous.

He understood the pain, the ache. But they never talked about it, they just fell into one another and somehow the skin, the heat, the ice and the touch eased it all.

"Hello Dean" He stated solemnly closing the car door and leaning into the seat a bit as the car lurched forward.

Dean needed to go to work in a few hours, he probably needed to get a few more hours of sleep as well. But that didn't occur to him. He wanted to be selfish for a bit, he wanted to remember that he was just eighteen, he wasn't an adult, he wasn't his father, that everything was right.

The lithe form of his companion was on him in seconds. Bodies not fitting together smoothly as their needs for sanctuary clashed into one another. It felt right. He shouldn't be here, he had responsibilities but he wanted this. This kept him sane.

"Cas" It was the first thing he had said since he had rolled unwillingly and numbly from his bed that morning, and it was a muttered half sob into a teenage boys shoulder. Sounding like a prayer. This felt right to him, somehow.


	2. Chapter 2

He hadn't slept that night. There was no point in even trying, he would have been woken up eventually by something. By his mother's drunken babbling, speaking about the father that beat both her and her children, a man who had taken off years ago . Or perhaps by his sister clumsily slipping out of her bedroom window late into the night, or early into the morning. Is there a difference? Her carmine hair illuminated under the street light while she waited for her newest boyfriend to pull up and whisk her away to fill the void left from an absent and abusive father.

He laid in his bed staring up at the ceiling, watching the fan whirl and whirl it's quiet creaking was the only sound in the dark bedroom. It made him nauseous. But he didn't dare to look away. If he did the only thing he'd see is the empty bed, candy wrappers still strewn across it. His older brother, full of loud, rambunctious dreams, had vanished into the night only a week ago. No one had even thought to erase Gabriel's memory. He wouldn't be coming back, just like poppa. But at least Gabriel would be missed, when people were sober enough to realize that the only positive force in the home was gone.

His body ached for food, but the only thing he would find in the kitchen is a broken mother, alcohol, and perhaps leftover drugs that she accidentally passed out too quickly to consume. He could see the beauty in his mother's features, but it was a disconnected beauty. Something you had to dig for, it used to be on the forefront. Lilith was a religious woman long ago. She was a happy woman long ago. A man strode into her life when she was barely nineteen and stirred her like a storm. He made an honest woman of her, and then? Then he spent nine years ruining her, and the children that had come from her. Alli, his name was Alli. Short for Alistair. The teenager remembered the name the same way he remembered the beatings.

The sun was slowly making it's unwanted presence known as it's rays slithered between the blinds. His face didn't twitch with a single emotion as he slid from his bed clothing rumpled and hair askew. He didn't care, couldn't bring himself to. The fresh cuts that lined his thin forearms throbbed a bit as he yanked on a hoodie to hide them. Outsiders liked to pry into his life too much when they saw the cuts.

Quietly with his head bowed he left the house. Passing Lilith with her head down on the kitchen table, flaxen hair strewn everywhere. She was out cold, too far gone to wonder why her son was leaving for school without a bag. The same way he left every morning. His stomach clenched with a stab of hunger but he ignored it. Michael would be home soon, with a check. Michael had gotten out, but he wasn't like Gabrie. Michael always came back. He tried to be the father that his siblings never had.

He passed his sister as she stumbled up the sidewalk, ugly bruises lining her jaw. A clear gift from the newest boy roped into her daddy issues. Anna, was talented, sweet, and psychologically unwell. Her arms looped around the teenagers thin shoulders dramatically. She smelled familiar, like alcohol, tears, and a soft undertone of powder. She smelled like their mother. "Cassie" She whispered into the crook of his neck a sleepy smile across her lips.

He closed his eyes at the use of the nickname and pushed her away continuing to walk. She was lost and never coming back, and the nickname only proved that point. Too many strange men had touched her. Starting with Alli. He could still recall the nights early in their childhood while Anna huddled into his bed sobbing, bruises and welts forming across her young body. "_Cassie, Cassie, Cassie_" she would cry, because she was sobbing to hard to actually say Castiel. He couldn't help her then, and now there was no helping her.

When he was a child being away from home meant he was safe. But after seventeen years, he was too drained to feel actual safety anymore. He heard the familiar noise, that sounded safe in an awkward not actually safe way. The low rumbling of a car. A small boy stumbled out of the car, his yes locking on Castiel. With a quiet nod the boy darted across the street and into the lower school. Sam. Castiel had met the boy once or twice. But he was in no way connected to the boy. They had a system though, Sam left that car door open, knowing that the Castiel would take his spot next to him, next to Dean.

It went that way, every school day. "Hello Dean" He spoke in his gravelly and quiet voice, the tinge of hollowness showing in every soft spoken syllable. The boy said nothing, he just drove. He looked like he could be the perfect golden boy, blonde hair, freckles and tanned skin. But he was a lost and broken child edging into manhood and alcoholism. Just like Castiel, except Castiel relied on a razor blade to soothe his problems not liquor bottles. They wouldn't call themselves friends, nor would they call themselves boyfriends. They just wanted and needed each other. Clawing desperately at each others skin, hoping it might fix their lives that had fallen so far off the track of normalcy. They always found a sense of normalcy together, parked just outside of town in that black Impala.

The single uttering of his name against his shoulder brought a wisp of emotion into the hollow boy. And that scared him. He pulled away quietly glaring down at the other boy, who said nothing, cheeks still flushed a bit. They rarely spoke to one anther, neither could really remember how this had all started. The need to be okay was too much for either of them though. Without realizing it they had begun again. Groping and rutting needing an out. Dean never questioned the long thin cuts scattered across Castiel's pale flesh. And Castiel never asked Dean how much he had drank already that day. It worked. They never considered as to whether it would last or not.


End file.
